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What does the production flow look like for JIRS30?

1 July, 2022

JonDeTech has recently published updates and news regarding the work to complete the JIRS30, i.e., the proprietary and nanowire-based IR sensor element. We have previously described our various sub-processes and informed you about the decision to establish "full fabless" under Varioprint's auspices. To satisfy the curiosity of all interested people, we now want to explain in a little more detail what the entire production chain looks like.

When we have now established an industrial plating line at Hofstetter's subsidiary SMF&More, this means that we have moved all sub-processes to external partners. Varioprint's responsibility will include 10 sub-processes, of which 8 are already managed by them today. The two remaining sub-processes (nanowire plating) will take place at SMF&More until we have qualified sensor elements.

The handling of the material included in Varioprint will continue to be carried out by JonDeTech's selected partners and consists of three parts: purchase, irradiation, and pore etching of plastic. In other words, the starting material for the Varioprint process is a porous plastic with a well-defined hole structure. When all sub-processes that are within Varioprint's responsibility have been completed, however, there is still one more step to be carried out. It is about packaging the sensor elements in a customer-tailored way according to set needs and wishes.

The quality responsibility for the final product (sensor element) remains within JonDeTech until we have qualified the product. Qualification means that the machine/process reaches the set specification, and we can perform the work in a repeatable manner. When we reach this point, the quality responsibility for the entire production flow will pass to Varioprint. See the picture below.

Several important PCB steps are within Varioprint's responsibility.

• Prerequisite for plating and enables the creation of metal structures.
• Here, film is laminated where we define the structure/design of the sensor element.
• Important to be able to etch metal to create a defined metal pattern.
• Lamination of absorbent and solder mask. Protective layer to close the sensor element.
• Laser cutting. Makes it possible to single out the sensor elements.
• In addition to this, a large number of process and product controls are added.

So, what does the status look like right now?

The focus today is on qualifying the metallization and establishing an industrial nanowire process.

The first metallization (a full copper layer on the back) is in place. During July, we will qualify metallization of the front. This means that we develop recipe parameters to ensure optimal adhesion.

Regarding the nanowire process, for several months we have carried out tests both in Stockholm and at Schlötter in the A5 format to give us a basis for how we will produce in full format (A3). That work has so far given us a working manufacturing method for metal A.

Now that the pilot line is ready, we have processed the first nanowires, metal A. The outcome looks very good and we see that with industrial equipment and chemistry we can repeat the process over time.

During week 25, we initiated work on establishing the second nanowire metal in the Pilot line. JDT already has a working chemistry for this, which, however, is not industrialized, so the main focus right now for Schlötter, our partner for the industrialization of chemical baths, is to develop a working industrial chemistry for this step.

In addition to these two critical areas, evaluation and improvement work also takes place within several of the other sub-processes. The assessment is that these steps already today produce results that meet the requirements for producing functional sensor elements, but continued work is required to reach a high and stable yield.

When all sub-processes are qualified, we will finally have a qualified product ready for sale to our customers.